In the Heart of the Heart of the Country

by William H. Gass

  Hans and Pa had put about a ten-foot hole in the bank. Hans dug and Pa put what Hans dug in small piles behind him. I figured it was near a hundred feet to the barn. If we’d been home and not so cold, it would have been fun. But it would take all day. They were great damn fools.

  I been thinking, I started out, and Hans stopped in the tunnel with a shovel of snow in the air.

  Pa didn’t turn around or stop.

  You can help dig, he said.

  I been thinking, I said, and Hans dropped the shovel, spilling the snow, and came out. I been thinking, I said, that you’re digging in the wrong place.

  Hans pointed to the shovel. Get digging.

  We need something to carry snow with, Pa said. It’s getting too damn far.

  Pa kicked at the snow and flailed with his arms. He was sweating and so was Hans. It was terrible foolish.

  I said you was digging in the wrong place.

  Tell Hans. It’s his idea. He’s the hot digger.

  You thought it was a good idea, Hans said.

  I never did.

  Well, I said, it ain’t likely you’ll find him clear in there.

  Pa chuckled. He ain’t going to find us neither.

  He ain’t going to find anybody if he’s where I think.

  Oh yeah—think. Hans moved nearer. Where?

  As far as he got. It really didn’t make much difference to me what Hans did. He could come as close as he liked. In the snow near that horse.

  Hans started but Pa chewed on his lip and shook his head.

  Probably Schmidt or Carlson, I said.

  Probably Schmidt or Carlson, shit, Pa said.

  Of course, Hans shouted.

  Hans scooped up the shovel, furious, and carried it by me like an ax.

  Hans has been working like a thrasher, Pa said.

  You’ll never finish it.

  No.

  It’s higher than it needs to be.

  Sure.

  Why are you digging it then?

  Hans. Hans wants to.

  Why, for christ’s sake?

  So we can get to the barn without being seen.

  Why not cross behind the drift?

  Hans. Hans says no. Hans says that from an upstairs window he could see over the bank.

  What the hell.

  He’s got a rifle.

  But who knows he’s upstairs?

  Nobody. We don’t know he’s even there. But that horse is.

  He’s back where I said.

  No he ain’t. You only wish he was. So does Hans, hey? But he ain’t. What did the kid see if he is—his ghost?

  I walked into the tunnel to the end. Everything seemed blue. The air was dead and wet. It could have been fun, snow over me, hard and grainy, the excitement of a tunnel, the games. The face of a mine, everything muffled, the marks of the blade in the snow. Well I knew how Hans felt. It would have been wonderful to burrow down, disappear under the snow, sleep out of the wind in soft sheets, safe. I backed out. We went to get Hans and go home. Pa gave me the gun with a smile.

  We heard the shovel cutting the crust and Hans puffing. He was using the shovel like a fork. He’d cut up the snow in clods around the horse. He grunted when he drove the shovel in. Next he began to beat the shovel against the snow, packing it down, then ripping the crust with the side of the blade.

  Hans. It ain’t no use, Pa said.

  But Hans went right on pounding with the shovel, spearing and pounding, striking out here and there like he was trying to kill a snake.

  You’re just wasting your time. It ain’t no use, Hans. Jorge was wrong. He ain’t by the horse.

  But Hans went right on, faster and faster.

  Hans. Pa had to make his voice hard and loud.

  The shovel speared through the snow. It struck a stone and rang. Hans went to his knees and pawed at the snow with his hands. When he saw the stone he stopped. On his knees in the snow he simply stared at it.

  Hans.

  The bastard. I’d have killed him.

  He ain’t here, Hans. How could he be? The kid didn’t see him here, he saw him in the kitchen.

  Hans didn’t seem to be listening.

  Jorge was wrong. He ain’t here at all. He sure ain’t here. He couldn’t be.

  Hans grabbed up the shovel like he was going to swing it and jumped up. He looked at me so awful I forgot how indifferent I was.

  We got to think of what to do, Pa said. The tunnel won’t work.

  Hans didn’t look at Pa. He would only look at me.

  We can go home, Pa said. We can go home or we can chance crossing behind the bank.

  Hans slowly put the shovel down. He started dragging up the narrow track to the barn.

  Let’s go home, Hans, I said. Come on, let’s go home.

  I can’t go home, he said in a low flat voice as he passed us.

  Pa sighed and I felt like I was dead.

  Part Three

  I

  Pedersen’s horse was in the barn. Pa kept her quiet. He rubbed his hand along her flank. He laid his head upon her neck and whispered in her ear. She shook herself and nickered. Big Hans opened the door a crack and peeked out. He motioned to Pa to hush the horse but Pa was in the stall. I asked Hans if he saw anything and Hans shook his head. I warned Pa about the bucket. He had the horse settled down. There was something that looked like sponges in the bucket. If they was sponges, they was hard. Hans turned from the door to rub his eyes. He leaned back against the wall.

  Then Pa came and looked out the crack.

  Don’t look like anybody’s to home.

  Big Hans had the hiccups. Under his breath he swore and hiccuped.

  Pa grunted.

  Now the horse was quiet and we were breathing careful and if the wind had picked up we couldn’t hear it or any snow it drove. It was warmer in the barn and the little light there was was soft on hay and wood. We were safe from the sun and it felt good to use the eyes on quiet tools and leather. I leaned like Hans against the wall and put my gun in my belt. It felt good to have emptied that hand. My face burned and I was very drowsy. I could dig a hole in the hay. Even if there were rats, I would sleep with them in it. Everything was still in the barn. Tools and harness hung from the walls, and pails and bags and burlap rested on the floor. Nothing shifted in the straw or moved in hay. The horse stood easy. And Hans and I rested up against the wall, Hans sucking in his breath and holding it, and we waited for Pa, who didn’t make a sound. Only the line of sun that snuck under him and lay along the floor and came up white and dangerous to the pail seemed a living thing.

  Don’t look like it, Pa said finally. Never can tell.

  Now who will go, I thought. It isn’t far. Then it’ll be over. It’s just across the yard. It isn’t any farther than the walk behind the drift. There’s only windows watching. If he’s been, he’s gone, and nothing’s there to hurt.

  He’s gone.

  Maybe, Jorge. But if he came on that brown horse you stumbled on, why didn’t he take this mare of Pedersen’s when he left?

  Jesus, Hans whispered. He’s here.

  Could be in the barn, we’d never see him.

  Hans hiccuped. Pa laughed softly.

  Damn you, said Big Hans.

  Thought I’d rid you of them hics.

  Let me look, I said.

  He must be gone, I thought. It’s such a little way. He must be gone. He never came. It isn’t far but who will go across? I saw the house by squinting hard. The nearer part, the dining room, came toward us. The porch was on the left and farther off. You could cross to the nearer wall and under the windows edge around. He might see you from the porch window. But he’d gone. Yet I didn’t want to go across that little winded space of snow to find it out.

  I wished Big Hans would stop. I was counting the spaces. It was comfortable behind my back except for that. There was a long silence while he held his breath and afterwards we waited.

  The wind was rising by the snowman. There were long blue shadows by the sn
owman now. The eastern sky was clear. Snow sifted slowly to the porch past the snowman. An icicle hung from the nose of the pump. There were no tracks anywhere. I asked did they see the snowman and I heard Pa grunt. Snow went waist-high to the snowman. The wind had blown from his face his eyes. A silent chimney was an empty house.

  There ain’t nobody there, I said.

  Hans had hiccups again so I ran out.

  I ran to the dining room wall and put my back flat against it, pushing hard. Now I saw clouds in the western sky. The wind was rising. It was okay for Hans and Pa to come. I would walk around the corner. I would walk around the wall. The porch was there. The snowman was alone beside it.

  All clear, I shouted, walking easily away.

  Pa came carefully from the barn with his arms around his gun. He walked slow to be brave but I was standing in the open and I smiled.

  Pa sat hugging his knees as I heard the gun, and Hans screamed. Pa’s gun stood up. I backed against the house. My god, I thought, he’s real.

  I want a drink.

  I held the house. The snow’d been driven up against it.

  I want a drink. He motioned with his hand to me.

  Shut up. Shut up. I shook my head. Shut up. Shut up and die, I thought.

  I want a drink, I’m dry, Pa said.

  Pa bumped when I heard the gun again. He seemed to point his hand at me. My fingers slipped along the boards. I tried to dig them in but my back slipped down. Hopelessly I closed my eyes. I knew I’d hear the gun again though rabbits don’t. Silently he’d come. My back slipped. Rabbits, though, are hard to hit the way they jump around. But prairie dogs, like pa, they sit. I felt snowflakes against my face, crumbling as they struck. He’d shoot me, by god. Was pa’s head tipped? Don’t look. I felt snowflakes falling softly against my face, breaking. The glare was painful, closing the slit in my eyes. That crack in pa’s face must be awful dry. Don’t look. Yes . . . the wind was rising . . . faster flakes.

  2

  When I was so cold I didn’t care I crawled to the south side of the house and broke a casement window with the gun I had forgot I had and climbed down into the basement ripping my jacket on the glass. My ankles hurt so I huddled there in the dark corner places and in the cold moldy places by boxes. Immediately I went to sleep.

  I thought it was right away I woke though the light through the window was red. He put them down the cellar, I remembered. But I stayed where I was, so cold I seemed apart from myself, and wondered if everything had been working to get me in this cellar as a trade for the kid he’d missed. Well, he was sudden. The Pedersen kid—maybe he’d been a message of some sort. No, I liked better the idea that we’d been prisoners exchanged. I was back in my own country. No, it was more like I’d been given a country. A new blank land. More and more, while we’d been coming, I’d been slipping out of myself, pushed out by the cold maybe. Anyway I had a queer head, sear-eyed and bleary, everywhere ribboned. Well, he was quick and quiet. The rabbit simply stumbled. Tomatoes were unfeeling when they froze. I thought of the softness of the tunnel, the mark of the blade in the snow. Suppose the snow was a hundred feet deep. Down and down. A blue-white cave, the blue darkening. Then tunnels off of it like the branches of trees. And fine rooms. Was it February by now? I remembered a movie where the months had blown from the calendar like leaves. Girls in red peek-a-boo BVDs were skiing out of sight. Silence of the tunnel. In and in. Stairs. Wide tall stairs. And balconies. Windows of ice and sweet green light. Ah. There would still be snow in February. Here I go off of the barn, the runners hissing. I am tilting dangerously but I coast on anyway. Now to the trough, the swift snow trough, and the Pedersen kid floating chest down. They were all drowned in the snow now, weren’t they? Well more or less, weren’t they? The kid for killing his family. But what about me? Must freeze. But I would leave ahead of that, that was the nice thing, I was already going. Yes. Funny. I was something to run my hands over, feeling for its hurts, like there were worn places in leather, rust and rot in screws and boards I had to find, and the places were hard to reach and the fingers in my gloves were stiff and their ends were sore. My nose was running. Mostly interesting. Funny. There was a cramp in my leg that must have made me wake. Distantly I felt the soft points of my shoulders in my jacket, the heavy line of my cap around my forehead, and on the hard floor my harder feet, and to my chest my hugged-tight knees. I felt them but I felt them differently . . . like the pressure of a bolt through steel or the cinch of leather harness or the squeeze of wood by wood in floors . . . like the twist and pinch, the painful yield of tender tight together wheels, and swollen bars, and in deep winter springs.

  I couldn’t see the furnace but it was dead. Its coals were cold, I knew. The broken window held a rainbow and put a colored pattern on the floor. Once the wind ran through it and a snowflake turned. The stairs went into darkness. If a crack of light came down the steps, I guessed I had to shoot. I fumbled for my gun. Then I noticed the fruit cellar and the closed door where the Pedersens were.

  Would they be dead already? Sure they’d be. Everybody was but me. More or less. Big Hans, of course, wasn’t really, unless the fellow had caught up with him, howling and running. But Big Hans had gone away a coward. I knew that. It was almost better he was alive and the snow had him. I didn’t have his magazines but I remembered how they looked, puffed in their bras.

  The door was wood with a wooden bar. I slipped the bar off easily but the door itself was stuck. It shouldn’t have stuck but it was stuck—stuck at the top. I tried to see the top by standing on tiptoe, but I couldn’t bend my toes well and kept toppling to the side. Got no business sticking, I thought. There’s no reason for that. I pulled again, very hard. A chip fell as it shuddered open. Wedged. Why? It had a bar. It was even darker in the fruit cellar and the air had a musty earthen smell.

  Maybe they were curled up like the kid was when he dropped. Maybe they had frost on their clothes, and stiff hair. What color would their noses be? Would I dare to tweak them? Say. If the old lady was dead I’d peek at her crotch. I wasn’t any Hans to rub them. Big Hans had run. The snow had him. There wasn’t any kettle, any stove, down here. Before you did a thing like that, you’d want to be sure. I thought of how the sponges in the bucket had got hard.

  I went back behind the boxes and hid and watched the stairs. The chip was orange in the pattern of light. He’d heard me when I broke the glass or when the door shook free or when the wedge fell down. He was waiting behind the door at the top of the stairs. All I had to do was come up. He was waiting. All this time. He waited while we stood in the barn. He waited for pa with his arms full of gun to come out. He took no chances and he waited.

  I knew I couldn’t wait. I knew I’d have to try to get back out. There he’d be waiting too. I’d sit slowly in the snow like pa. That’d be a shame, a special shame after all I’d gone through, because I was on the edge of something wonderful, I felt it trembling in me strangely, in the part of me that flew high and calmly looked down on my stiff heap of clothing. Oh what pa’d forgot. We could have used the shovel. I’d have found the bottle with it. With it we’d have gone on home. By the stove I’d come to myself again. By it I’d be warm again. But as I thought about it, it didn’t appeal to me any more. I didn’t want to come to myself that way again. No. I was glad he’d forgot the shovel. But he was . . . he was waiting. Pa always said that he could wait; that Pedersen never could. But pa and me, we couldn’t—only Hans stayed back while we came out, while all the time the real waiter waited. He knew I couldn’t wait. He knew I’d freeze.

  Maybe the Pedersens were just asleep. Have to be sure the old man wasn’t watching. What a thing. Pa pretended sleep. Could he pretend death too? She wasn’t much. Fat. Gray. But a crotch is a crotch. The light in the window paled. The sky I could see was smoky. The bits of broken glass had glimmered out. I heard the wind. Snow by the window rose. From a beam a cobweb swung stiffly like a net of wire. Flakes followed one another in and disappeared. I counted desperately three, e
leven, twenty-five. One lit beside me. Maybe the Pedersens were just asleep. I went to the door again and looked in. Little rows of lights lay on the glasses and the jars. I felt the floor with my foot. I thought suddenly of snakes. I pushed my feet along. I got to every corner but the floor was empty. Really it was a relief. I went back and hid behind the boxes. The wind was coming now, with snow, the glass glinting in unexpected places. The dead tops of roofing nails in an open keg glowed white. Oh for the love of god. Above me in the house I heard a door slam sharply. He was finished with waiting.

  The kid for killing his family must freeze.

  The stair was railless and steep. It seemed to stagger in the air. Thank god the treads were tight, and didn’t creak. Darkness swept under me. Terror of height. But I was only climbing with my sled under my arm. In a minute I’d shoot from the roof edge and rush down the steep drift, snow smoke behind me. I clung to the stair, stretched out. Fallen into space I’d float around a dark star. Not the calendar for March. Maybe they would find me in the spring, hanging from this stairway like a wintering cocoon.

  I crawled up slowly and pushed the door open. The kitchen wallpaper had flowerpots on it, green and very big. Out of every one a great red flower grew. I began laughing. I liked the wallpaper. I loved it; it was mine; I felt the green pots and traced the huge flower that stuck out of it, laughing. To the left of the door at the head of the stair was a window that looked out on the back porch. I saw the wind hurrying snow off toward the snowman. Down the length of it the sky and all its light was lead and all the snow was ashy. Across the porch were footprints, deep and precise.

  I was on the edge of celebration but I remembered in time and scooted in a closet, hunkering down between brooms, throwing my arms across my eyes. Down a long green hill there was a line of sheep. It had been my favorite picture in a book I’d had when I was eight. There were no people in it.

  I’d been mad and pa had laughed. I’d had it since my birthday in the spring. Then he’d hid it. It was when we had the privy in the back. God, it was cold in there, dark beneath. I found it in the privy torn apart and on the freezing soggy floor in leaves. And down the hole I saw floating curly sheep. There was even ice. I’d been seized, and was rolling and kicking. Pa had struck himself and laughed. I only saved a red-cheeked fat-faced boy in blue I didn’t like. The cow was torn. Ma’d said I’d get another one someday. For a while, every day, even though the snow was piled and the sky dead and the winter wind was blowing, I watched for my aunt to come again and bring me a book like my ma’d said she would. She never came.